


To Reverse Entropy

by AssoverTeakettle



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Alternate Universe - Space, Eldritch, Eldritch Uchiha Obito, Hatake Kakashi Needs a Hug, M/M, Other, Protective Uchiha Obito
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-10
Updated: 2020-12-10
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:41:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27985557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AssoverTeakettle/pseuds/AssoverTeakettle
Summary: The Uchiha are eldritch interstellar entities with no true forms. They awaken in nebulous regions of space and search for one who 'sees' them. And when they do, they assimilate themThis is an incredibly self-indulgent cross between a soul-mates au and Obito as a strange eldritch creature from space au.
Relationships: Hatake Kakashi/Uchiha Obito
Comments: 3
Kudos: 65





	To Reverse Entropy

**Author's Note:**

> Pretend that i know anything about astrophysics and thermodynamics (spoiler i don’t). This is literally me wanting to ship these two as literal star-crossed lovers, some soul mate spice thrown in for fun, and a little angst <3\. And i wanted Obito especially to be a weird eldritch alien entity. That’s it, that’s the goal. 
> 
> It's schmoopy and I run out of ways to describe Obito in like two paragraphs. It's fine. 
> 
> Any 'chapters' for this will be short excerpts in this universe, not necessarily a connected plot line. Hope you have fun! I did :)

> 
>     The first step is the conversion of stimuli from the environment into sensations. Since animals are composed entirely of cells, this process must occur at the cellular level—that is, stimuli from the environment activate receptor cells on the surface or within their bodies. These stimuli are of three types: electromagnetic radiation in the range of wavelengths we identify as light, pressures from objects or the air striking the body, and streams of molecules in the air or in direct contact with the animals’ bodies. A variety of receptor cells exist to receive and record these stimuli.
>     
>     In every case, these environmental stimuli exist in analog form and are converted into digital form by the receptor cells and the neural circuits connected to them...
>     
>     The common element is that a small portion of an undifferentiated stream of stimuli is selected by the organism and given a specific identity. These selected—indeed, one could say, created—identities we identify as sensations...
>     
>     Sensations are the building blocks of consciousness. They must first be combined into perceptions and converted into objects in the environment. Then neural systems must evolve mechanisms by which they can be remembered or recalled (neurobiologists identify the first appearances of memory in habituation, sensitization, and conditioning); and finally plasticity must develop—the capacity to shape, edit, and organize this neural content, present or remembered, into a picture, experience, or awareness of the “world.” This, in the modern metaphysics of Democritus, is the way consciousness emerges in neural systems.
>     
> 
> Titus, Mark. “Consciousness Is Made of Atoms, Too - Facts So Romantic.” Nautilus, 4 Sept. 2016, nautil.us/blog/consciousness-is-made-of-atoms-too.   
> 

  


Their destination grows larger in the viewport. The crescent of the planet lit by the system’s distant sun shrinks to a thumbnail sliver as they approach the docking zone in its capital city, Zenith. It’s been a listless few hours since they exited the warp and Obito can’t muster even the vaguest sense of excitement for this visit. 

His ability to be excited for much of anything went out a long, long time ago. 

With the planet’s emphasis on technology and its reliance on trade to other intergalactic cultures, the architecture and flow of it is built entirely for the urban, the cutting-edge of progress. The city is a glittering expanse that brightens even the dark side of the planet to something like a blue and violet dusk. 

Obito has never been to this particular planet, or its crowning city, but Shisui has. His cousin has spent plenty of time extolling the beauty of it, the sophistication and the pageantry. 

He’s also mocked it plenty, but at least half of his swooning is genuine. 

Obito will be meeting him here as a part of their official envoy. It’s almost like the family doesn’t trust him to act in a diplomatic capacity on his own, he thinks sourly.

Exiting the ship, Obito can see why Shisui had remembered enough of this place to both extoll and ridicule. The buildings are tall spires of metal and glass, lit through with the clean light from countless sun rods that line their interiors. Even now, at it’s darkest, the city looks like it was spun from black pearl or abalone. It’s lovely, darkly luminous in that sleek, overly contemporary way that’s never gone out of style, despite a literal universe of diverging cultures and values. 

The disembark is simple. Professionalism at its finest. Which translates to several handing him off several times between assistants and guides. Another series of hallways and he is released to his royal apartments for the night. 

A long curving pane of glass spans the room which is bare and empty save for a huge circular bed sunk into the floor and some elegant shelves built into the walls in such a way that they mimic the sweeping motions of waves or a gravitational orbit.

His personal communicator rings with the tone that Shisui set for himself.

When he pulls it out of his coat, it shows him sticking out his tongue at the camera. A caption with it reads, ‘Welcome to Zenith!!!!! I’m coming up! Better prepare yourself!’

Obito sighs and stares sightlessly at the displays and updates that begin populating the viewport now that he’s turned it on. His reflection manages to swim through the scattering of light and code. Even with the distortion and the competing streams of data he’s a ghost in shades of gray. 

Obito aches in a way that has nothing to do with his pseudo bones. 

He’s angry all the time and beneath that anger is an exhaustion that never leaves no matter what he does or where he goes. It’s been thousands upon thousands and millions of years and he only ever manages to continue dragging on, growing in strength as he spins through the stars. 

Shisui bounds into the room and screeches to a halt when he sees Obito. 

When he speaks it’s soft, “That kind of day, huh?”

Obito cannot bring himself to speak around the weight of it in his chest. Shisui has never needed much help though, he’s always been understanding like that. 

Just the weight and power of Shisui’s presence is soothing. 

It’s one of the reasons an awakened Uchiha cannot wander willy-nilly through the galaxy. At least not alone. They continue growing in power and size and with no one to balance their intensity, they also have a tendency to lose themselves in their own tangled senses of self. 

Shisui has enough power of his own to even out Obito’s flagging concentration.

“Here,” he says, nudging Obito to sit at one of the sprawling couches along the enormous window. “Let’s give Izuna and Madara a call, touch base on what we’ll be doing for the next few days.”

Under Shisui’s watchful eyes Obito manages to key in a call to their family. 

There’s a moment of static and crackle before figures materialize on the screen. 

Madara squints down at whatever device he’s using and blinks. 

‘Oh there it goes,’ he says. 

The conversation ebbs and flows. Thankfully, they all have had their days to struggle with what it means to be an Uchiha, they understand. Shisui guides their half of the conversation and Obito is allowed to fade out. 

He must lose focus because he's brought back to Madara calling his name, "Obito? Obito! You're unraveling, Obito." 

When he turns his attention to himself he can feel it. His skin is rippling on his right side and he knows his eyes have opened too far. And from around the room, the loose threads from the blankets are drifting lazily in his direction. Pulled by the heart of his power towards him. It is a good thing it's just him and Shisui in this suite.

Obito isn't even feeling much of anything in this moment. Normally his slips happen when he's feeling something intensely and this, this is just a lack of focus. 

He grits his teeth.

“I’m trying, allright?” He sighs, “Just leave it.”

He ignores the sympathetic glances from Izuna and Madara. 

“Alright, then,” Madara says, “Let’s start with this…”

  


On the third day of negotiations Zenith hosts a concert. Shisui and Obito are given the VIP box, of course, and they’ve been provided a retinue to wait on them hand and foot. 

Before the performance starts, a series of foods are wheeled in, candies, meats, even wines and other delicacies.

Shisui’s eye’s light up and he reaches for a bright yellow candy before he wilts. 

If it’s nothing he’s ever had before he likely doesn’t have any appropriate taste buds for them.

“Ooh, ooh, wait, ok,” He flags down one of the servers and holds one of the bright yellow treats out to him, “Try one for me quick ok? It’s not poisonous or damaging right?” he asks, bird quick to their guide.

They blink and shake their head, “Oh no, of course not! These are pretty common candy but they’re known for being incredibly sour.”

Interest piqued Shisui turns back to the server. “Please?” he asks, all wide eyes and pouting lips. 

“I-you just need me to...eat it?” The server asks. His skin is already pinkening from the attention. 

Clapping his hands together Shisui nods, “Yes please, if you don’t mind.”

The server does and Shisui’s eyes spin open to stare hungrily at him. The young man’s entire face puckers and he sweats and whistles through his mouth with the apparent sourness of it. Shisui, his eyes alight, records what the humans in the room cannot see before he pats the poor man on the back. 

“Thanks! You can spit it out now,” he laughs. 

With everyone in the room chuckling the server ducks away to spit it out before he returns to his post. He grins at the good natured jabs and does his best to get back to his professional demeanor.

As they all return to their duties in the room, Shisui picks another of the yellow candies up and stares at it. He rolls his jaw a few times and Obito can feel when he readjusts the nerve endings in his mouth to mimic what he saw in the server. Finally, he closes his true eyes and pops it in his mouth. 

“Gnhk!” He makes a gurgling exclamation before he starts laughing around it. 

“Wow! Yeah, you were right that is _sour_!”

As the stadium around them begins to fill in earnest, Obito turns away from the screens and their unending streams of advertisements. 

He glances over at Shisui, who is now packing the sweet into one side of his cheek and then the other. 

“Isn’t this just another popstar performing for a dignitary?”

Shisui chews on the inside of his cheek for a moment and squints, “Mmm, kinda? It’s a little different in Zenith, they have this weird combination of military and pop star junk going on. You read the briefing right? About the Zenith military?”

Obito snorts and crosses his arms. “If you mean the lack of one, sure,” he snorts.

Stealing another of the tart treats, Shisui nods, “Yeah. So, it’s been like, 400 years since they had any real need for a militarized force on planet or off planet. And they specialize in technologic advancements more than people-power...” he pulls a face. “So, they’re military is basically a very highly skilled assassin squad or tactical team.” 

Shisui rolls the hard candy around in his mouth and packs it into his cheek to finish his ramble, “So, it’s similar, in that they have someone spangly coming out to perform, but it’s weird because their top agents in their military have a dual role as like, pop-stars or celebrities.”

Finally, he seems to decide that the sour candy isn’t for him. Or he grows bored with it. Obito can hear the grinding crack as Shisui’s teeth, visible and not, come out to grind the candy into powder. 

The body guards Zenith has provided them all flinch as a wave of heat rolls through the room with Shisui as its epicenter before cooling down again.

It’s a typical stimulus that occurs when one of the family unfurls themselves or their abilities. Typical for all of them save, Obito. He hasn’t generated heat or light in his true form in thousands of years. 

Once Shisui finally swallows it down he turns another grin onto Obito. 

Shisui is very good at manipulating his appearance. Damn him, seconds later and his teeth even look normal. 

Obito seethes, glaring out across the stadium.

“Soooo, favorite cousin mine, we’ll watch a spangly singer who is also a top military black ops agent!” Shisui says, “It’ll be great!”

Their shy, bespectacled guide, Sen, pipes up from the corner of the booth. 

“Actually, Hound has been our top operative for years! Their record is quite impressive! They’ll also be using the latest Dendite-Tech! It should be very exciting!”

As Shisui eagerly questions their nerdy walking encyclopedia on the Dendrite-Whatever, Obito tunes it out and stares down at the open arena. 

Their guide brings one of the ‘Dendrite-Tech’ pieces out to show Shisui and Obito can feel when he turns it on. 

He grudgingly looks back at the two of them to inspect it.

_Oh._

_Oh, that is interesting._

It’s a collar, simple and sleek. It’s built to integrate with a living biological being’s nervous system. With a low-grade current running through it Obito can see the shape of it, can feel what it is trying to do. Just beyond the surface of its sensors is an electrical current meant to magnify a living organisms ability to connect to and integrate with other more mechanical systems.

It’s the nervous system of a larger set of machinery, he assumes built for style and performance in the arena. By wearing the collar, the wearer could essentially bridge the gap between their own nervous system and to this technology’s approximation of the same. 

Ultimately frivolous and pointless, but interesting nonetheless. 

In a way, that’s almost exactly what his physical form is to his entire self, same as Shisui. The bodies that they wear are capable of walking and talking and interacting with these other lifeforms as a way to send signals, to be understood. It allows him and these other species to connect to his greater whole without injury or destruction.

The collar is primitive but interesting.

Ignoring the droning enthusiasm of their nerdy tour guide, Obito turned back to the performance.

The lights begin to dim at the outer edges of the arena and the crowd begins to roar. 

In the center, at the bottom level, several stories below Obito and Shisui, a single human steps out across a series of metal and glass platforms. From this distance it looks like a mosaic. 

A series of enormous screens ringing the top of the stadium light up and each shows a close up of the figure below. 

It's a young man. As with most performers Obito has witnessed he’s lithe and well-formed for his species. Tall too, from what Obito can see. 

When he looks up at the people surrounding him, Obito can see his face in high definition all around. He has silver hair and eyes so dark they look black, even under the glaring lights. And the lower half of his face is hidden beneath a mask that is positively dripping in tassels of diamonds.

The rest of his look is meant to emphasize his body, fairly sparing on the glitter, with a few strategic mesh cutouts across his shoulders and along the cut of his hips. 

Around his neck is a collar of metal identical to the one that Sen was showing them. 

The collar lights up and as he raises his arms the mosaic of panels beneath his feet lights up and begins to rise. 

Hound uses the Dendrite-Tech to adjust the performance array of lights and stages, flickering them on and off, adjusting their color, location, and more all from the originating signal point of his own body. 

Obito cuts into Shisui and Sen’s conversation. 

“Does one person command the entire system usually?”

Sen perks up, “Oh! No, actually! Hound is able to for brief performances without too much neural overload, but most of our operatives would need to split the system between three or four people in order to activate the entire array.”

“And the array is the system of platforms and lights, correct?”

“Yes, sir! Each piece is multifunctional.”

As they speak, Hound and the glimmering mosaic of lights and platforms rises to almost eye level. When the music begins the platforms split and diverge, some spinning through the air to reflect light across the crowd, others illuminating with colored lights, while others form moving bridges and staircases for Hound to dance on throughout the stadium. 

It is, Obito will admit, impressive. For a spangle show. 

Shisui and Sen continue to ooh and ahh behind him and he turns to follow the lone performer.

He opens the seal on his eyes and _looks_.

From this distance, even with his eyes, Hound is a tightly bound coil of electrical impulses and sparkling connections. A moving pillar of light and energy firing off signals within and without. From his throat, the Dendrite-Tech sparkles and burns with a constant output, extending Hound’s signals from his crown to his spine and out to the receptors in the array. 

Watching this is more of a show for Obito than some spangly costumes and moving stage pieces could ever be. It’s a microcosm of its own originating from Hound and his command of this extended system. He’s clearly made it his own. 

It’s soothing in a way. The shining threads flare, disconnect, and reconnect across the arena. It’s like watching the sleeping ones in the Outer Ring. 

Vast consciousnesses and sparking and firing in lazy whips of intent, just beginning to come awake. 

Obito blinks and suddenly the Hound is in front of him. A few meters away at best. He must have glided over to them when he wasn’t paying attention.

He’s looking at Obito, his dark human eyes meeting his over the glittering mask that hides the lower half of his face. This close to Obito his eyes are startlingly dark for how pale the rest of him is. 

His gaze flickers over Obito’s face — taking in his physical deformity — Obito assumes. 

Even now at rest the right side of Obito’s body is always slightly ill-fitting. The skin there sags and bunches in strange ways and no matter what he’s done in the thousands of years since his forcible collapse, he has never been able to smooth it out to the perfect symmetry of before. The perfect symmetry so typical of the rest of his family. 

Hound meets Obito’s eyes. Obito feels himself pulse. He realizes that he didn’t bother resealing his eyes. 

For most life forms this doesn’t matter. They don’t see his eyes, they see something they don’t understand and so their mind crafts something that makes sense to them and their realities and they move on. 

A rare singular few can truly see an Uchiha’s eyes. 

Tobirama could see Madara. Toka could see Izuna. 

Hound can _see_ him. 

Here is someone who _sees_ him.

Between them, Obito reaches out without form and _connects_. 

Hound’s face pales and this close, Obito can see and feel how his heart staggers, the signals that normally regulate the body interrupted for a fraction of a second. He watches and sends a burst of signal through their connection. There is nothing in Hound — _Kakashi_ — that can withstand that. His neural pathways flicker in the wake of Obito’s touch in a ripple outward from his eyes as he struggles to realign with what’s happening to him in this way he cannot see or measure. 

Obito can feel it already. It’s a gravitational shift. In a lifetime of walking alone through the cosmos with only his own ever increasing entropy for company, now, the center of his power shifts, pulled by a secondary but equal pull. 

He can’t help it. He tries to slow it down, to give Kakashi some room to breathe but he can’t stop it. Obito is ageless and formless and his power is the core beyond an inescapable event horizon where a star once shone. Like liquid, like the exchange of heat from one form to another, all that he is moves from Obito alone, to _Obito and Kakashi_. 

Kakashi feels it. He doesn’t understand it, not yet, but he knows something is taking hold. No doubt he can feel it bearing down on him like a tsunami headed for shore. 

Obito can see it in his veiled face, can feel it where they are now joined. 

There is instinctive dread tangled with something like awe. 

Distantly, Obito registers some musical cue and Kakashi seems to shake himself back into focus. He dips his torso in a clumsy bow and with a sharp twist pulls away from their box to return to the center of the arena and the array. He’s moving too quick now, running from something that is already creeping through his body, through his sense of self.

It’s already over. 

Obito rises from his seat and walks to the edge of the box. Behind him Shisui startles, turning to look at him.

“Obito?”

The branches of Kakashi’s connections to the sparkling universe of machines and code that he has been artfully manipulating this evening begin to disconnect in scattered bursts as something infinitely larger rolls in and takes precedence. 

When he reaches the center of the arena once more, Kakashi trembles. His voice falters and fades away on a gasp as all that Obito is races towards that promise of equilibrium in Kakashi, like a landslide. 

As Obito completes the integration, entire sections of the performance array go dark. Distantly he can hear the hush and alarm of the arena of people as the power shuts down on the moving pieces of stage, lights, even the large screens surrounding the rim of the stadium. Those that were flying freely previously fall one by one, as Kakashi’s focus shrinks to the smallest area he can manage, the platform he is now standing on. 

Obito is ready for it. Kakashi burns in his eyes like a white flame, flickers, and finally falls. 

It’s a blink to twist himself out of one place in space and time, only to reappear beneath his pair-bond. Kakashi falls into him, limp and heavy, staring sightlessly beyond him. Cradling him close, Obito pulls them both back to the box where Shisui and the others are before the first wild cries from the crowd even begin. 

In his arms, Kakashi is limp and frail. And beyond their bodies in the sea of them and between them, Obito cradles the rest of him too.

  


Hours later and Shisui has managed to barter and charm their way out of any danger of offense. Instead, after their meeting, the governors of Zenith had seemed pleased. Obito has already had several messages and digital greetings that sit somewhere between congratulatory and almost self-satisfied. As though half of these people are now assuming they had anything to do with this night’s events. 

He hasn’t answered any of them. 

They all ring shallow and false and besides, with Kakashi still unconscious beside Obito in his berth on the ship, how could he attend to anything else. 

Setting his communicator aside, Obito sighs and scoots down the bed until he is lying facing Kakashi. He drifts with him, both here in this ship and in that place of immensity where they carry the weight of Obito’s power between them. 

Obito has finally settled, the wild rush of him smoothed out and gentled now.

His physical eyes close and he turns inward. He leaves the boundaries of his body and he simply _is_. Kakashi, in this space, unspools like light at the edge of the universe, flowing with the pull of gravity and time. When he eventually wakes he will remember little of this place or these moments. He will create his own meaning from what is happening now. 

They slide together and past one another, simultaneously one and separate. Motes of memory gleam in Obito’s mind as though they were his own. 

A father, silver haired and dark eyed, kinder than he should have been. 

He found his father on the floor of their apartment. Blood thick and tacky on the floor. Hands too small to do anything but call for help and wait. 

Flashes of Kakashi’s training for Zenith glint in neatly ordered chains, one after the other. It isn’t until Kakashi killed someone for the first time, at age ten, that Obito pulls back from them. He pulls the rest of them towards him, pages through every atrocity Kakashi has committed and those that have been inflicted on him. 

As he goes Kakashi begins to spark with some awareness. 

Obito can feel him trying to pull back some of these memories. Trying to hide them from his gaze. 

Gently, Obito continues. 

It isn’t until he’s tasted every single sensory moment of Kakashi’s life and how it has shaped him that he notices one last one. Kakashi, with what little strength he has here, he has turned to cunning instead. Obito might not have noticed, if this particular swirl of Kakashi’s sense of self were not so evenly structured. 

He pries at Kakashi, until he can open this last memory to his eyes. 

It’s a young woman, with brown hair and strange markings on her face. He can feel Kakashi’s love for her, the way the sight of her soothes him even as they fight for their lives. 

He feels Kakashi building his power, his greatest weapon, in his hand. The lightning surges and she jumps in the path of his hand. Her body parts for his hand and he feels her insides, hot and surging with blood before he destroys her heart completely. 

It was over in an instant. Quick and brutal. 

_Necessary._

Kakashi shrinks from him, roiling through their shared consciousness with the hurt of it. 

Obito, more practiced than Kakashi, gathers him back into himself and drowns his sorrows with deeper sleep.

  


When Obito opens his eyes, Kakashi is finally sleeping and not spinning in exhausted unconsciousness. He breathes slow and deep. And when Obito rests his palm on Kakashi’s cheek, he shifts a little before going still again.

He’s reacting to normal stimuli again, which is good. Generally, from what he’s gathered from the other Uchiha with pair bonds, that usually heralds a reconnection to the nervous system.

Still feeling full and bright in ways he hasn’t in years, Obito calls Izuna. 

When he picks up, Izuna says, “So how is he? Shisui told us.”

Obito cannot think of a single thing that would adequately describe Kakashi in this moment. 

“He’s...he’s adjusting.” He says, “I think this is normal? He’s asleep now.”

Izuna sighs, “Yes, he may sleep for several days.”

A moment of silence passes. “Izuna,” Obito whispers, “he’s so fragile. He’s so small.”

“Mmm,” Izuna sighs, “they often are. Obito?”

Obito hums distracted as he smooths Kakashi’s unruly silver hair out of his face. 

Izuna chuckles and Obito can hear him smiling, “Even if he is those things, isn’t he lovely even so?”

For the first time in ages, Obito laughs through his tears and it is so, so good.


End file.
